Bill Watterson
Bill Watterson
William Boyd "Bill" Watterson IIis an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes at the end of 1995 with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium. Watterson is known for his negative views on licensing and comic syndication and his move back into private life after he stopped...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth5 July 1958
CountryUnited States of America
Bill Watterson quotes about
If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again.
The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse
Obviously the great thing about this job is the complete freedom of the schedule. So long as I meet the deadline, they don't care when I work or how I work.
If you give a little credit to the concept of the artist, I think you ought to indulge excesses a bit, because that reflects the personality of the writer. Now if a joke is in bad taste or it's not funny, okay, that's awhole different thing, but how you craft a joke is really what the writer's job is, and I don't think that technique should be subject to any editorial constraints.
Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time.
I'm pulling out different aspects of my personality in writing each character and, if I'm doing my job well, I'm being true to the situation and true to the character.
I was offered a job at the Cincinnati Post as their editorial cartoonist in a trial six month arrangement. The agreement was that they could fire me or I could quit with no questions asked if things didn't work out during the first few months. Sure enough, things didn't work out, and they fired me, no questions asked.
I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life...procrastinating and rationalizing.
Few things are less comforting than a tiger who's up too late.
I let my mind wander and it didn't come back.
Calvin: Trick or Treat! Adult: Where's your costume? What are you supposed to be? Calvin: I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak! ...Boy, am I scary or what?
MOMMMM, I'm thirsty... What's this, just water?
I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.
Instead of asking what's wrong with rampant consumerism, we ought to be asking, 'What justifies it?' Popular art does not have to pander to the lowest level of intelligence and taste.